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Sophie had seen pictures of Isabella Rossi, his mother, who had died many years previously, and had been rendered speechless by her outrageous sultry beauty, every gene of which she had passed down to Alessio, her only child.
Everything single thing around her...the streamlined dove-grey furniture...the pale silk rug on the blonde wooden floor...the cream leather sofa tucked against the wall...faded away as that connecting door was gently pushed open and there he was, sprawled behind a desk the size of a single bed, hands folded behind his head, waiting.
There was only mild curiosity on his face as he looked at Sophie, who stood, hovering, in the centre of his massive office as the door behind her was closed.
The woman specialised in the art of fading into the background, Alessio mused. Grey trousers, grey jumper, a long dark cardigan and an over-the-shoulder bag that might have held the kitchen sink. She had short-cropped fair hair and brown eyes, and in defiance of nearly every woman he had ever met seemed to have only a passing acquaintance with make-up. And yet there was still something about her that defied the faded image she seemed intent on conveying.
He continued to stare at her in silence, vaguely trying to work out what it was about her that didn’t conform to the uninspired standard she clearly wanted to set, before abruptly sitting forward, slapping the desk with both hands and nodding to the wide black leather chair in front of it.
‘No need to stand by the door as if waiting for divine inspiration, Miss Court. Have a seat and tell me what you’re doing here. Tea? Coffee? Something a bit more spirited?’
He glanced at his watch before rising to his feet and strolling towards the window to briefly peer outside at bleak, grey, wintry London, before spinning round to face her. He perched against the window ledge and shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers, while she slid into the chair opposite his desk and tucked her hair neatly behind her ears.
‘No, thanks.’
‘Well...? I would while away some more time on pleasantries, but I’m afraid I have a lot to do...’
‘Maybe I’ll have a cup of coffee after all,’ Sophie said. ‘It’s been a long trip getting here.’
She realised that she actually needed a few pleasantries before launching into what she had to say. She needed to swim in the shallows for a bit before diving into the deep end.
She looked around her, taking in her surroundings. The building might be Georgian, but it had been refurbished to a dizzyingly modern standard, with muted colours and pale chairs and cream wooden shutters at the windows.
‘I didn’t expect you to work in a place like this,’ she heard herself say, and blushed when he raised his eyebrows in question and he lazily strolled back towards his desk. He sat, pushing the chair at an angle so that he could tilt it back, his long legs stretched to the side and crossed at the ankles. A dangerous predator at rest.
‘A place like what?’
Sophie shrugged and steeled herself to meet the jet-black eyes lazily pinned to her face. ‘I suppose I expected something more modern. Glass and steel.’
Hard edges for a hard man.
‘This part of my business portfolio deals exclusively with hedge funds. My clients enjoy privacy, and that’s exactly what they get in this postcode. I’m surprised to see you here, Sophie, but I can only assume that this has something to do with my father?’
His eyes didn’t leave her face for a single second as he buzzed through to his PA and asked for a pot of coffee.
‘Or are you here for some other reason?’
‘No.’
What other reason could she possibly have had for visiting this guy?
‘I am here about your dad... I wish I could put this another way, but Leonard had another stroke a couple of weeks ago,’ she said bluntly.
She noted the way he suddenly stilled, the way his eyes narrowed and the guarded mantle that dropped over him like a powerful protective shield.
‘That’s impossible.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I would have known.’
Coffee was brought in, but Sophie barely noticed because she was riveted by his dark, dark eyes, which were now as hard and as cold as the frozen wastes of Siberia.
She knew so much about this man—largely through all the articles his father had tucked away about him over the years, and from the pages of the memoirs he faithfully dictated every evening, just before his dinner was served. Whether she liked it or not, she knew where he worked, and what he did, and all about the fortune he had single-handedly amassed from the springboard of his mother’s inheritance, bequeathed to him when she’d died many years previously.
She knew that he was some kind of financial genius. She also knew that he was a guy who played as hard as he worked. She had seen the carefully cut-out glossy pictures of him captured by paparazzi, with a series of gorgeous tiny little blondes on his arm, usually smiling and gazing up at him with adoring eyes. She knew that none of them ever stayed the course.
Now, she shivered and wondered what it was that drew all those women to him. Surely, however rich and beautiful the man was, no one could ever really be attracted to someone as chillingly cold as he was? Money talked, but surely it didn’t talkthatmuch?
